I walk over to the two heavy, reinforced duffel bags sitting in the corner of the room.
I kneel beside them, my fingers fumbling with the zippers. When they slide open, the sight is almost obscene. Bricks of cash. Bundles of blue-tinged hundreds, stacked so tightly they look like a solid wall of paper. Fifty million dollars.
It’s the price of my soul. It’s the cost of every needle, every bruise, and every night I spent praying to a god that didn’t exist.
“It’s a lot of blood for a little bit of paper, isn’t it?”
I flinch, my head snapping toward the bed. Peter is sitting up, his dark hair messy, his eyes tracking my every move with that terrifying, singular focus. He doesn’t look like a husband. He looks like a guardian of the underworld.
“Is this it?” I ask, my voice a low rasp. I run my hand over the cold plastic of the money wrappers. “Is this what he died for? Is this what we’re worth now?”
Peter gets out of bed, naked and unashamed, the scars on his chest and shoulders standing out like a roadmap of the hell we’ve walked through. He kneels behind me, his chest pressing into my back, his hands covering mine on top of the money.
“That’s the exit fee, Wendy,” he whispers into my hair. “That’s the fuel for the fire. We aren’t going back. We aren’t going to some suburb to pretend we’re normal. This money buys us a world where no one ever gets to look at you again. Where no one knows your name. Where I can build a wall so high the rest of the world just disappears.”
I turn in his arms, my fingers digging into the muscleof his forearms. The raw honesty of it hits me. He isn’t offering me a house with a garden. He’s offering me a kingdom of shadows.
“I don’t want to hide, Peter,” I say, and for the first time, my voice doesn’t shake. I look at the money, then back at him. “I spent months in a box. I’m done hiding. If we take this, if we leave… I want to be the one holding the match when we burn the rest of it down.”
He stares at me, a slow, dark smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He isn’t shocked. He’s proud. He sees the rot I’ve embraced, and he loves me for it.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” he growls.
He reaches into the side pocket of the bag and pulls out a sleek, black semi-automatic. He doesn’t just show it to me. He places it in my hand. The weight of it is heavy, cold, and strangely comforting.
“Felix’s buyers are coming,” he says, his eyes locking onto mine. “They don’t care that he’s dead. They want the girl, and they want the cash. They’ll be at the gate by nightfall.”
I wrap my fingers around the grip, feeling the power of it vibrate through my bones. I look at the money, the man I love, and the weapon in my hand.
“Let them come,” I whisper, the last of the victim dying in my throat. “I want them to see what thecage made me.”
The basement of the safe house smells of damp earth and gun oil. It’s a low-ceilinged tomb, lit by flickering fluorescent strips that make everyone look like a corpse. Peter stands behind me, his body a solid, warm wall, while Hook leans against a concrete pillar, tossing a spare magazine from hand to hand like it’s a coin.
“A gun isn’t a toy, Wendy,” Hook says, his voice losing that sarcastic lilt. For the first time, he’s looking at me with something that resembles respect—or maybe just the recognition of a fellow predator. “It’s a machine that turns a thought into a hole. If you hesitate, the hole ends up in you.”
Peter’s hands come up, covering mine on the grip of the black semi-automatic. He’s adjusting my stance, his thigh pressing against mine, forcing my feet apart.
“Forget the movies,” Peter growls into my ear. “Don’t anticipate the recoil. Don’t fight it. Absorb it. You aren’t shooting a target, Wendy. You’re shooting the memory of every hand that touched you without your permission. You’re shooting the man who held the needle. You’re shooting the fear.”
“I’m shooting the man who’s coming through the door,” I correct him, my voice flat.
I stare at the paper silhouette pinned to the back wall. It looks like a ghost. I imagine Felix’s face on it. I imagine the buyers—men who think I’m just a line item on a ledger, a piece of meat with a fifty-million-dollar price tag.
“Take the shot,” Peter commands.
I pull the trigger.
The roar is deafening in the small space, a physical punch that vibrates through my teeth. The recoil jerksmy arms up, but I don’t flinch. I watch the paper. A jagged hole appears in the “throat” of the silhouette.
“Not bad,” Hook mutters, stepping forward to inspect the damage. “A bit high. You’re pulling to the right because you’re squeezing too hard. Relax your grip, darling. Let the machine do the work.”
“I don’t want to relax,” I snap, turning to look at him. My ears are ringing, and the adrenaline is a sharp, electric hum under my skin. It’s better than the white powder. It’s cleaner. “I want to be sure.”
Peter reaches around, taking my hand and guiding the muzzle back toward the target. He doesn’t let go this time. He stays connected to me, his heartbeat thudding against my shoulder blades.
“Again,” he says.
We spend the next three hours in that tomb. My arms start to ache, the repetitive crack-crack-crack of the rounds turning into a soundtrack for my rebirth. Hook shows me how to clear a jam, his fingers moving with a terrifying, blurred speed. He shows me how to reload without looking, the click of the magazine seating home becoming a new kind of prayer.
